The Delhi Police told the Supreme Court on Thursday that educated people turning towards extremist activities are a bigger threat than those who carry out violence on the ground. The police said this while opposing the bail pleas of activists Umar Khalid, Sharjeel Imam and others who are accused in the 2020 Delhi riots case.
Additional Solicitor General SV Raju, appearing for the Delhi Police, argued before Justices Aravind Kumar and N V Anjaria that the accused themselves caused delays in the trial and should not use those delays to seek bail. He showed the court videos of Sharjeel Imam giving what he described as “inflammatory speeches” against the Citizenship Amendment Act in Chakhand, Jamia, Aligarh and Asansol in 2019 and 2020.
Raju pointed out that Imam is an engineering graduate. “Nowadays there is a trend that doctors and engineers are not doing their professions but engaging in anti national activities,” he told the court, according to PTI.
He claimed that the anti CAA protests were planned in such a way that they would coincide with the visit of US President Donald Trump in February 2020. “The ultimate intention is regime change. CAA protests were a red herring. The real purpose was to create economic deprivation and chaos across the country,” he said. He added, “These so called intellectuals are more dangerous than the ground level terrorists.”
Khalid, Imam, Gulfisha Fatima, Meeran Haider and Rehman have been charged under the UAPA and other laws for allegedly being part of a larger conspiracy that led to the riots in northeast Delhi, which killed 53 people and injured more than 700.
Raju also referred to the recent Red Fort blast and what investigators have called a white collar terror module linked to Jaish e Mohammad. Earlier this month, agencies seized nearly 2,900 kilograms of explosive material from Al Falah University in Haryana. A day later, one of the accused doctors set off a car bomb outside the Red Fort, killing 14 people. Several doctors have been arrested since then.
During the hearing, the police told the court that the 2020 violence was not spontaneous. They said it was “orchestrated, pre planned and well designed” and that the accused had discussed blocking essential supplies to Delhi and cutting off the narrow corridor that links the northeast with the rest of India.
Raju again insisted that the timing of the protests was not accidental. “It was planned in such a way that it coincided with Donald Trump’s visit. This was not a coincidence but a well thought out conspiracy,” he told the bench.
